


now he's so devoid of colour

by ThisJoyAndI



Category: Peaky Blinders
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7144865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisJoyAndI/pseuds/ThisJoyAndI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(he don't know what it means)<br/>Tommy, Grace, and loss. 'He has only ever known Grace in colour, blonde, green, pink, cream, and that is perhaps why he demands a closed casket for her funeral. He does not want to see her in grey.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	now he's so devoid of colour

**Author's Note:**

> Entirely based on those soulmate AUs within which colour goes away when your soulmate dies.

Colour goes away when Graces does, but Tommy finds that he hardly cares. He notices, entirely powerless to do anything as he watches the colour fade from his world as his wife slips away, but he doesn’t care. What use is colour, when he can no longer wake up of a morning to the sight of Grace’s blonde waves, crumpled a little from sleep? She is gone, and he will no longer be able to see the green shade of her eyes, the pink of her lips, the cream of her skin. He will remember it, in the vivid colour Grace had gifted to him, but he shall never again see it. It is fitting, he thinks, a grey world for a broken man. Perhaps if Charlie took more after his mother Tommy would be more upset, but even though he is barely two Charlie is an exact copy of him, no sign of Grace whatsoever in their son’s appearance. Grace complained extensively about that, seeing as she had been the one whom carried him and birthed him, only for him to come out looking exactly like Tommy. The unspoken promise of more children whom would hopefully look more like their mother had always accompained her meaningless complaints, a promise which was to be fulfilled throughout the years to come…but that has gone now too, along with colour, along with Grace.

Tommy shall remember the blue of his son’s eyes, the darkness of his hair, if only because it is his own, and his mother’s before him. He will take care to remember everything, if only so Charlie can be told about it later, but he shall no longer revel in the colour to be found in this world.

It had been an utter surprise, walking out of The Garrison to find his short exchange with the new barmaid had gifted him with something he thought to be the stuff of children's stories. He’d told no one, no one at all, merely continued about his business as if something integral within him had not changed so radically after one quick conversation. He has only ever known Grace in colour, blonde, green, pink, cream, and that is perhaps why he demands a closed casket for her funeral. He does not want to see her in grey, for she does not deserve such a fate. She deserves to be remembered in colour, for she is what brought such a thing into his life. He doesn't think he could handle seeing her any other way. 

There are other women. Some nights, when he needs the presence of a warm body next to him just to feel sane, he dishonours his marriage by bedding other women. It is never anything serious, not even when it is with Lizzie, only ever a transaction of sorts, and the women are never there in the morning when he wakes. It is only ever him and Charlie, all alone in this grand house Grace had taken delight in decorating. He remembers how carefully she’d arranged the furniture, how intently she’d organised a colour scheme, even at eight months pregnant, and if he shuts his eyes he can remember what the house is supposed to look like, a grand house for an extraordinary woman, but he cannot see it, not truly. All he sees is grey, grey clothes, grey food, grey blood, the greyness enveloping him much like an old friend would as he tumbles deeper and deeper into darkness. The sun rises and sets, but he can never see the pink and orange hues of the dawn. They’d watched it once, Grace unable to sleep for Charlie shifting around in her belly, and Tommy refusing to sleep whilst she was so tormented by their son. His arms around her, holding her and their child tightly against him, the sun had risen as they watched from their bedroom window, and they’d finally fallen asleep in the pale morning light.

When Lizzie comes to him one day and tells him that she’s pregnant, he tells her, perhaps a little callously, to deal with it. She blinks once at him, before nodding, turning on her heel to leave. Neither of them want a child together. Neither of them truly want to even be together, but Lizzie is as familiar to him as his own reflection. She is a comfort to him when his heart feels as if it could shatter inside his chest, and she will never refuse his advances.

Perhaps, if he were a kinder man, he’d let her keep the child, for he knows the procure is dangerous, knows she deserves the little happiness a child could bring, but when Grace died he made a promise to himself that Charlie would have no siblings. If Grace is unable to give him a daughter with her blonde hair and green eyes, he does not want another, some pale imitation of the happiness he could have had. He knows everything is his fault, and if his penance for his foolishness is to be a grey world, a cold bed, a sorrowful heart, and a son whom shall never truly know his mama, Tommy shall gladly pay it a hundred times over.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just still so freaking sad about everything. Grace Burgess deserved better, and Tommy and Grace's lovestory deserved better.


End file.
